Skip to main content

Cup Runneth Over

While looking at his daughter's room which was a mess... again... Rabbi Kula, author of Blessings, finally hears himself say, "It's just like Talia: always overflowing."  He realized he was smiling.  He wrote:

"Her cup runneth over... Perhaps Talia didn't want these things put away neatly, but left out, exposed as if to say 'Here I am.'  For the first time I understood while Talia always said, 'It's not a mess to me.'"

We're home from vacation.  The suitcases are put away.  The clothes have been washed.  The souvenirs seem like friendly old things already.  Now, it's time to start thinking about school starting back in a few weeks.  I'm looking ahead with excitement, but not urgency.  I'm finding the back to school sales AND squishing my toes around in these lazy muggy days.

My cup runneth over.

I look into the crystal ball of my own invented next year and I see school, baseball practice, grocery shopping, and all the rest of it.  I imagine all the days in my iPad calendar full up with colored blocks that show activity and engagement.

People visiting my life may say, "I don't know how you do it!"  And I'll say, "It's not a mess to me!"

My cup runneth over.

I imagine the fusses, the bad moods (mine), the running out the door with an envelope of cash marked "Eating Out Money."  I see the piles of papers and bills and permission slips.  And while it may be untidy, it won't be a mess to me.

My cup runneth over.

I imagine the hurried phone calls to my family in Texas and Georgia, the wishing for more time to talk.  I see the door open to family who comes to visit and friends who come to share.  I expect the new friends we'll make the old friends we'll say farewell to.

And my cup runneth over.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Read This if You Don't Like the Word Pee

   Okay... so I think I nearly broke the toilet from plopping down on it so hard to go pee.  WHY did I plop instead of coming in for my usual graceful landing?  Because my best friend encouraged me to go to the gym and take her weight lifting class... and because I did it... and because she's so darn encouraging that I tried to show off how MOST people who don't go to the gym for four months would really stink their first time back... but not me!  I decided that I should prove that I am a superhero who can skip the gym for four months and come in looking fresh and fit and strong as an ox... okay, okay... an ox that can lift a 2kg dumbell.  I decided that these sleeping muscles could SURELY do just as many squats as that cute 60 year old woman in the front row whose gluteus maximus muscles look nice and bouncy. I'm just going to have to be deliberate about which chairs I go to sit in today.  Spindly antique ones are definitely NOT my best option. ...

Undivided Self

Palmer describes two teachers, one who found joy and success in his career, and another who did not.  He attributed the joyful teacher's success to the idea that he taught "from an undivided self."  He says, "In the undivided self, every major thread of one's life experience is honored, creating a weave of such coherence and strength that it can hold students and subject as well as self."  The other teacher, on the other hand, projected his inner warfare onto his students.  The joyful teacher enjoyed craft, while the sour teacher enjoyed nothing.  The joyful teacher was "enlarged" by his teaching.  The sour teacher was diminished. As teachers we are either the joyful teacher OR the sour teacher.  We have days, maybe even weeks, of being the joyful teacher and days of being the sour one.  In my personal experience, when I am actually in the room teaching students I am the joyful one 95% of the time.  When I leave the room and enter the rest of...

Altered Books and Journaling

We English teachers usually believe that the WORD, the combination of  letters into meaning,  is the most important tool in the box. In an effort to document my belief that it may be time to consider that  there are other tools that help students  make meaning out of their lives,  out of what they read, out of what they think... I offer this slide show. Perhaps the literacy toolbox could be expanded. I say this knowing that some kids, like my oldest son, might balk... but also knowing that other kids, like my youngest son, would sing arias of found comfort and joy. Maybe next to the words and sentences, some kids could find color  and shape and sticky-stuff...  maybe cuttings and doodles and sketches... This slide show exhibits a visual reading journal using a traditional  text entry and  a webbed entry.  It also shows some altered books.